Rückkehr
by schwanenkoenigin
Summary: 'an occasion when someone (...) comes back to a place where they were before' / Tony gets a call from McGee in the middle of the night. It's about her.


Anthony DiNozzo does not sleep well. He hasn't slept well in a few years now. In fact, most nights, he doesn't sleep at all, for he is plagued by nightmares—night terrors, as his therapist calls them—all of them involving his former coworker Ziva David. His former _love _Ziva David. Being killed—right in front of him. And he is unable to help her. Every single time, he is incapable of rescuing her. She reaches out to him, fear in her eyes, desperation dripping from her pores, and he wants to save her– but he can't. He just cannot get to her in time, and he loses her, over and over and over again.

Stuffed animals, sleeping pills, hypnosis—he's tried everything there is. It seems as though he will not sleep, well or at all, ever again. The universe decided on his nocturnal fate when it took his love away from him back in Israel; he was doomed the second he left her behind. And now the nightmare follows him, relentlessly, and it's so dark, so scary, so _real_—he knows it is futile to try to escape.

Sweat rises to his forehead at the thoughts of it all. Frustration fills him right along with them, and he gets the urge to throw his blanket off of the bed which he immediately follows through with. He then grabs a pillow from the other side of the bed to cover his head, hoping that it drowns out the voices terrorizing him.

Unsurprisingly, it does not change anything. The man groans into the mattress. A mattress which should comfort him, should offer him protection from the evils of the world that he witnesses daily at work. In the streets. In his own home. The mattress—the bed—should be sacred, a peaceful place to help him leave his struggles behind. Yet for him, for the past few years, it has been anything but that. It has been terrifying, has left him frightened to the core; it is nothing he would wish even upon his worst enemies.

It is so bad that electricity jolts through his entire body the second his phone flashes on the bedside table. He can't _see _it, he just _feels _something change in his proximity. He's wired; he knows that if he receives a call in the night, it means nothing good. He turns around and sits up, then grabs the device with a trembling hand—if it's from the lack of sleep or the anxiety connected to the call he doesn't know—and, without looking at it first, he presses his finger to where he knows the little _answer _button is. He holds it to his ear, not ready to hear whatever is to follow.

"DiNozzo," he replies grimly. His eyes shut, and he prepares for the impending crash. Inevitable, disastrous.

"Tony," the caller says, completely out of breath, and the addressed man internally takes the _brace_ position. Alarmed, he sits there, his back straightened, waiting for any information at all that will either destroy his world or ameliorate it. Either way, he needs _ something_, and silently begs for the person on the other end to continue. After a few seconds—they feel like hours—it comes. "Tony," they repeat, "I don't– I–"

He realizes now that it's McGee. McGee. Of course. He should have known, deep down, that it really could only be his old team contacting him, which most likely means that he's about to be told there is an old case that has finally been solved. It is great that they want to inform him about such turns of events, why they think he would want to know in the middle of the night, however, he absolutely cannot grasp. A sigh leaves his mouth. "McGee," he threatens darkly, "out with it." _Now_, he adds in his mind. _Let me get back to my non-existent good sleep and at least _try _to pretend everything is okay tomorrow._

"Tony–" McGee interrupts him, then, and the now-Parisian looks at his phone surprised because _nobody_ interrupts him, nobody undermines his authority, not then, not now, even though it has been years since he was a part of the team. He soon gets to understand why the interruption is _needed_, though, as McGee follows it up with an almost silent whisper. "She's alive."

And Anthony DiNozzo needn't know a name. He knows who _she _is. For she has been with him, mentally, this entire time, and even though he _knows _Anthony DiNozzo doesn't cry, and even though he knows other people know Anthony DiNozzo doesn't cry, he does cry. Sobs wrack his now flaccid body, and he sinks down into the bed, his heart and thoughts all over the place, as his pulse is racing. Limbs that usually ache are now rubber-like, he cannot feel them, and his phone is long forgotten on the wooden bedroom floor. The caller seeks to receive an answer, asking him twice, thrice to please say something, but the response never comes.

* * *

It is hours later, well into the morning, when the man has shed all his tears. He is lying there, numb, in a lake most literally _dripping _from the sheets onto the ground, and he is yet to find even a single coherent thought. One that is fitting, accurate, suitable for the situation he has found himself in; but of course he doesn't know about such situations, as he hasn't been in a comparable one before. Nothing could have prepared him. Not in his wildest dreams or nightmares would he have known this to be possible.

A sudden sense of lostness makes its way through his bones, fills his mere body up to the brim, and he shivers, starts quivering and shaking, cannot tell reality from fantasy anymore.

Maybe he did eventually dream up this scenario; it simply _couldn't _be.

Manic laughter ricochets in his head. If it's there in actuality or not, he does not comprehend, neither does he want to.

For the first time in his life, Anthony DiNozzo wishes he had disappeared when offered the opportunity in one or the other work-related shootout; he wishes the job in Washington had finished everything for him—for his own sake, for everyone's sake—and he wishes that he was buried, so deep underground that nobody and nothing could possibly save him. At least then, he would have been spared this.

* * *

The sun is already showing itself from its most beautifully terrifying angles when Anthony distantly hears a sound that somewhat reminds him of a knock on his front door. His understanding on what's real and what isn't hasn't completely re-established itself yet; however, he is fairly certain there _is _someone at the door, even though he cannot imagine _who_. He lifts his head from the pillow ever-so-slightly in the hopes that it gives him a bit of clarity. Perhaps, the person is still there or knocks again, leaving the still lying man enough time to stand up and walk over to the entrance of his apartment, an apartment that might or might not be about to be invaded.

Whatever Anthony DiNozzo thought would happen after last night, someone interrupting his recovery was not it.

With his back tense and his sore eyes squeezed shut, he focuses on any alarming sounds to indicate who or what is there and, in the process, almost forgets to inhale, because even that is too much noise in the current situation. He opens his mouth to dampen his breathing further, and just as he is about to lie back down—nothing is happening and his muscles are getting sore from the anxiety—he hears it again. If he had to guess, he would say it is as loud as a pin dropping. Nevertheless, it is there.

His body acts on his own, then. He gets up from the still soaked-through sheets and moves towards the door. Thank God his old job required him to sleep in a full set of nice-looking clothes—a habit that he never quite managed to get rid of, a habit he is now glad he hasn't gotten rid of—and never have anything in his path that could potentially be dangerous by getting tripped over, because he does _not _want to scare the visitor away.

Although he is completely in the _You could be killed, make no noise whatsoever _mode which is still an automatism after all these years, and although he hasn't a clue who's out there, he's not as on edge anymore; he doesn't take the gun from his closet, either—which would have been easy; it's right next to the bed—because, deep down, with the way the person's knocks sounded—vulnerable, tired, and almost unnoticeable in the first place—he is convinced that whatever is going to happen is not going to be _bad_. He cannot imagine a person knocking like that to be mean-spirited.

Though, should he have made a mistake in this calculation anywhere, it may just as well cost him his life.

_Turn around and get your weapon or trust your gut?_

Hesitation stops him in his tracks for a second.

_Gibbs would trust my gut. Gibbs would make me trust it._

_Okay_. Nodding encouragingly to himself, Anthony assures his now re-emerging anxiety that it is going to be alright. It is going to be fine. The fact that the person hasn't said anything at all to identify themself to him doesn't mean anything, either, because what if it is a person who needs to speak about personal business? Someone who needs to talk about a secret? They couldn't possibly make themself heard by a neighbor, they would need to be quiet which, in turn, would also explain the knocking.

He stands upright, then, because no more fear fills him, no more anxiety, he is just willing to help now, help whoever is out there; everything he has gone over in his mind makes sense; there is someone out there who needs him. Someone who will not judge him for his tears, his pale face, his being out of touch with reality.

Instinctively, his hand glides onto the doorknob. He turns it steadily until a _click _signalizes that _this is it_, he is about to face someone quiet, someone mysterious, someone with a secret, someone who doesn't want to be seen.

Someone like _her_.

If his hands hadn't trembled before, they certainly start to do so now, as the barrier between him and the woman previously on the other side is finally gone; if his green eyes hadn't had a reason to fill up with tears like a waterfall fills up with a river's water before, they certainly start to now, as they meet a pair of brown ones that mirror them; and if he hadn't had a reason to render him completely and utterly speechless, he certainly does now, as he can barely, under his tears, make out a face he has been haunted by for over a decade.

It takes no longer than a second until she is in his arms, and he squeezes her as tightly as he can, for he hasn't had her in too long. He cannot comprehend anything in this moment, he can only cry, cry, cry; like a child who feels that it's okay to cry; a child who knows that crying is not punished, that it helps; a child who is free enough to cry and cry and cry until there is no more to cry about. That is what it feels like. It feels like being a child, like he doesn't have to be strong anymore. He can now, finally, allow himself to show how much it had broken him to see her leave.

And it had. It truly had ripped the biggest part from him. A part that, continuously, for the years following his very own tragedy, he tried to pick up and glue back into the hole that it had left. It didn't work. Not all missing pieces were there anymore, and some of his soul, his mind, had stayed empty. Nightmares had found those spaces. But they weren't what he was looking for. He knew what he was looking for was not _there. _Ziva David was not there, and only she could provide what he needed, what his body and soul needed in order to be repaired.

And so Anthony DiNozzo takes his time basking in what he knows is the answer to all the prayers he will never let anyone know he sent up to the heavens. The answer, the missing pieces—Ziva David is everything that has been with him for so many days, months, years. She is here, back where he always knew she belonged—in his arms. And she is so vulnerable, as if she could break at any second, and it is not like anything that he remembers, but at the same time, everything is just the same as it was before. Their bodies still fit together like a cold drink fits on a hot summer night, their lips still make a perfect match, and their hands being intertwined still ignites fires that no person will ever be able to extinguish.

No words need to be spoken for a while. The pair just focuses on each other, on the feel of each other's arms, each other's body. They focus on the taste of each other's lips, a taste which they hadn't been able to recall, yet a taste which they hadn't forgotten, either. Anthony DiNozzo and Ziva David simply stay there, next to the former's apartment's door—now closed—and they bury their heads in each other's necks whenever a heated embrace has temporarily satisfied their need to rekindle the old flame.

At one stage, their legs become sore. All the stress, all the adrenaline, all the surprise and wonder have worn off, and they need to sit down. Not necessarily to talk or even say anything at all, just to take the pain away.

So they do, they sit down on chairs which are facing each other, and they immediately start holding hands again. Anthony looks at his love intently as he caresses her fingers. "You found me," he states. And it is in a tone of voice so soft that it really surprises himself. He did not know he had this kind of softness in him still. A softness that contrasts the way that he has been living, closed off and ungrateful to everyone but their daughter, with little cracks which were slowly becoming bigger, like dry skin in winter that you do not take care of. Had it not been for Ziva David bringing the softness back out, who knows what would have become of that skin. Of course, there is more to do than just rediscovering it, but it's a big step, if not _the _biggest.

"I found you," she replies. Her eyes wander to their hands, and they stay for a bit before she looks at _him _again with a little smile grazing her lips.

Anthony can tell that her eyes are tired, and he knows that his own are, too, but he can see the love that's slowly filling them back up—it is amplified by the expression of happiness on her lips—and the way that she is looking at him makes him fall in love with her more than he already has. The way that her eyes are slowly becoming bright and sparkly again right in front of him does the same. Oh, how much he had missed this. In his dreams, all that her eyes were filled with was dread. But now– "You found me. You're back. You're here." It's no more than a stutter, a repetition of what has been said twice already, but it makes her smile grow, and he gently traces his thumb across her palm. It makes his smile bigger, too; but most of all, it makes his cold black heart redder. He leans in over the edge of the table to connect their lips again, if only for a second.

Laughter follows the kiss, from both sides. It's refreshing to their ears, exhilarating, even, but most of all, it's _real_. Anthony cannot remember the last time he laughed out loud, cannot remember the last time he was happy. Not like this. They have a lot to talk about, yes, but right now, they're so very relieved, and it's audible. The walls reverberate their happiness, the apartment seems bright, warm, for the first time in an eternity.

Once the laughter has subsided, Ziva's beam is wider than before. As wide as the deep blue ocean separating them for so long. For too long. "Yes," she confirms after a long while, "I have found you." She squeezes his fingers in emphasis.

Darkness fills his mind, though. With everything positive that has happened, he still doesn't know, he still isn't sure what this means. What if she leaves again? What if this is temporary? What if she is here to say goodbye? Would she do that to him? Would she–

"No," she says, as if she can read his mind, "I'm staying." Her hand comes up to caress his cheek.

"Forever?" he inquires. "You're not leaving again, are you?"

"No, Tony." His name still sounds perfect from her lips. "I'll be here with you. Forever."

They're just words, but they're followed by a deep embrace, and _that _is what lets him know that it's true. She is not going to leave him again, and he knows just as certainly that he will not leave her, either. He will not let her go. The promise to take care of each other, to stay together forever, no matter what, is in the kiss. It's real, it's perfect. It's not anything he would have imagined last night by far, but it's happening.

His love has returned to him. So, from now on, Anthony DiNozzo is going to be able to sleep well again—to _sleep _again, at last—because he is feeling so terribly lucky. For he has _her _in his life, the person who had stolen his heart and run off with it an unhealthily long time ago; he has _her _now, the one who made him see, know, experience real, true love for the very first time, the one responsible for his worst heartbreak and now mending the pieces back together.

So yes, for the rest of his days, he will be incredibly, _awfully _happy. Happier than he ever was, happier than anyone or anything else could have ever made him; happier than he thought he deserved to be.

For Ziva David has once again entered his life, and for she will not leave it ever again.


End file.
